TSG Group pays $32M for Brickell development site

Site allows for about 500 resi units or 1,000 hotel keys

1399 Southwest First Avenue, Camilo Lopez and Jorge Escobar
1399 Southwest First Avenue, Camilo Lopez and Jorge Escobar

Broker Alfonso Jaramillo

TSG Group just paid $31.75 million for a development site in Brickell.

Chestnut Capital LLC, a company managed by Michael B. and Allison B. Smith, sold the 44,575-square-foot property at 1399 Southwest First Avenue to TSG for $712 per square foot. Alfonso Jaramillo of Fortune International Realty brokered the off-market deal, according to a press release.

Jorge Escobar, managing partner at TSG, said the firm hasn’t decided what it will do with the property. A three-story, nearly 35,000-square-foot office building occupies the site. Built in 1979, it is anchored by the Consulate General of Mexico. It’s on the same block as the 52-story Infinity Brickell condo tower that was completed in 2008.

The roughly 1-acre plot is zoned T6-48B-O, which allows for up to 500 residential units or 1,000 hotel keys per acre.

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The Brickell area has seen a handful of large development deals this year, including the $50 million sale of the BankUnited building at 1428 Brickell Avenue to Ytech and the $29.5 million sale of 90 Southwest Eighth Street to Gazit-Globe’s US arm. Jaramillo said there is very little land left in Brickell.

Records show Chestnut Capital bought the site from what is now BNY Mellon for $5.62 million in 2003, which means the entity just sold it for more than five times what it paid about 14 years ago.

The site is across the street from China City Construction and American Da Tang Group’s property, where the Chinese developers plan to build a nearly $1 billion mixed-use development, CCCC Miami Towers.

TSG, led by Camilo Lopez and Escobar, completed the nearby Cassa Brickell last year. The real estate firm recently brought on One Sotheby’s International Realty to handle remaining sales of the 80-unit, 10-story condo building.